It is strange why this news wasn't available from the beginning since a lot of backlash was created based on the initial revealing. Still, this is great news! Now both sides will be pleased, and then there's people like me who are pleased either way. I love classic and I'm excited for new.

Even being an RPG veteran I find Etrian Odyssey on classic a little too frustrating so when I played IV I used the easier mode and it provided some challenge from time to time. I think the line here is the amount of difficuly vs the frustration and time lost. In Demon's Souls for example, even being hard and frustrating, you get to keep some things you've managed to get, in EO the best thing you keep is a map. Better than nothing but for me it's still not enough.

I surely don't want RPGs to just send you back at the exact same spot (like XIII). XIII already healed you after every battle so that was a little too much, but a nice balance like in Dragon Quest or Ni no Kuni, for example, you chose weather you keep your XP or your money. In EOIV I just preferred the option given in the casual mode when you die, I just wish it had the normal mode difficulty. Also a little sad is the fact that when you die in casual you get sent back to town with full life, so what happened in the end dying became a legitimate strategy for saving money, since it's cheaper than paying for heal.

EO1 is the most broken of the EOs, in my opinion. Even if you don't use Immunize/Defender you still have the attack boost/Relax on Troubadours and the Survivalists being ridiculously overpowered, with Poison being incredibly strong for the first 1/3 of the game. Almost any class setup you use can be abused in some way. I can't really say I agree with you, Farron.

I'm hoping for a class rebalance. Given that they're adding Gunner (itself a broken class from EO2) I expect I'll be getting my wish.

Beautiful box art. I'm glad it's the same as the japanese. Just sad that I was thinking about buying this with the credit I got from SMT IV and I'll miss the box.Maybe I should get this at retail and buy online some other game.

You already got a review copy? I just saw your preview and I'm baffled that the game is coming next month. I was planning to get this game with the SMTIV+FE bonus but I don'think I'll be able to finish SMTIV by then, maybe barely.If by them I manage to finish SMTIV I think I'll just pick it up. There should be a time I can manage to clean my RPG backlog.